Comcast: It's totally not a big deal—cash was for Ed Murray's earlier campaign.

[UPDATE Friday 9:35am CT: Ars received a response from the Murray campaign clarifying his position on the city's gigabit project and the Comcast donations, and we have posted it at the bottom of this story. When Ars asked the Murray campaign if the candidate planned on changing the gigabit plan in any way, the answer was a flat: "No."]

Sure, there are a few bright spots of gigabit nationwide, including Seattle, which announced its service nearly a year ago. Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn pushed for Gigabit Seattle, a partnership between Gigabit Squared and the University of Washington. Its goal has been to bring 1Gbps connections to the Emerald City, using fiber that was originally planned for a municipal network.

But now, the Washington Post reports that Comcast has been donating money to McGinn’s rival, state Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle). The mayoral election is set for Tuesday, November 5.

Murray, the Post adds, "has committed to honoring the city's existing contracts for a 14-neighborhood pilot project but has shown limited enthusiasm about McGinn's plans to expand the network in the future."

The Broadband Communications of Washington Political Action Committee (BCAW PAC), which gets nearly all of its money from Comcast, donated $5,000 (its single largest donation) to the group “People for Ed Murray” not even a month after Gigabit Squared’s pricing was announced. And who is the president-elect of BCAW PAC? That would be none other than Janet Turpen, the vice president of government affairs for Comcast in Seattle. Turpen herself donated $500 to Murray earlier this month.

Gigabit Squared's 1Gbps service will be priced at $80 per month, while Comcast's Seattle service tops out at 105Mbps (roughly one-tenth the speed), for $115 per month.

Comcast previously gave Murray $700 just one day after Seattle’s gigabit project was announced in December 2012. Comcast told Ars that while this new transfer was reflected on December 14, 2012, it was actually donated in May 2012 as part of Murray's state senate campaign.

And what is Comcast’s response to all of this? Comcast told Ars that these donations were not related to the mayoral campaign but in fact were donations for Murray’s earlier state senate campaign.

“Locally in Washington State, where Comcast has a significant presence of customers and employees, we have supported the State Senate campaigns of Ed Murray for several years including in May 2012,” Sena Fitzmaurice, a Comcast spokesperson, told Ars by e-mail. “Several months after our last contribution, Senator Murray decided not to run for Senate and instead to run for Mayor of Seattle, and converted our contribution to his mayoral campaign. The contribution was not related in any way to any actions of the current mayor and was instead related to our previous support.”

And with respect to the CASE PAC donations?

“Comcast in no way controls or directs the contributions of the CASE PAC," she added. "That PAC gives to a wide variety of candidates, and which candidates they support is in no way determined by us. Also of note is that our giving patterns to the PACs are not related to any particular election, in the case of the Washington Broadband PAC for example, our donation amount is determined by a formula based on subscriber counts in the state."

The Ed Murray for Mayor campaign did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

UPDATE: On Friday morning, Ars received the following e-mail from Sandeep Kaushik, who describes himself as a "consultant" to the Murray for Mayor campaign. We have reprinted it in full here:

The story in The Washington Post incorrectly implies that Ed Murray might not be supportive of citywide high speed broadband because Comcast has contributed to his campaign. As we made clear to the Post reporter yesterday, Ed does support the City's efforts to create a citywide high speed broadband network, and the speculation in the article that Ed might decide in the future not to support an expansion of the current City plan (to provide service in 14 neighborhoods) is simply wrong.

We've had several thousand contributions to this campaign over the last 11 months, but I've now had a chance to look up the Comcast donation. It was a donation to Ed's legislative race, originally made in August 2012. After Ed announced he was running for mayor in early December, the contribution was converted over (along with dozens of others) to the mayoral race account prior to a fundraising freeze (according to Washington State law, state officials can not raise money for any political campaign from 30 days before the start of a legislative session, until it ends) that went into effect on December 15.

As for why they gave, I can't speak for them. But I can say that there's no doubt that the current mayor's combative style and divisive approach to governance has alienated many, many people, and not just in the business community. It's a major reason why a majority of the City Council has endorsed Ed's campaign (something that hasn't happened in Seattle in at least 40 years), why businesses large and small have endorsed Ed, why 22 labor unions have endorsed (far more labor support than the mayor has received), why Washington Conservation Voters have endorsed, why Planned Parenthood Votes has endorsed, and why the three main mayoral candidates knocked out in the primary have all endorsed Ed and support his campaign.

Promoted Comments

There is a bit of a bright spot in all of this. I live in Seattle and a CenturyLink rep knocked on my door last month. When I saw her ID, I had slotted about a half dozen denials to her sale. Then she spoke: "CenturyLink just wired your neighborhood poles with fiber, and we can offer 40/20Mbps for $35/month. In 6 months, we will have this block wired for fiber to the wall."

Sold. I called Comcast the next t day, where the incredulous rep told me that what I was telling her (fiber in the 'hood, soon to the home) was wrong and I had better watch out. Boy, she made it easy to switch.

I see CL trucks everywhere out here and always thought to myself "Hasn't anybody told these guys the news about DSL being dead?" Looks like they've been laying fiber all over the place these past few years. I've been testing my connection every hour for the last month and have never fallen below 38/18.

This is, unfortunately, business as usual. It has, however given me a reason to vote against Murray, and I was already leaning towards McGinn.

Seattle broadband options are embarrassing for such a tech-oriented city. One of the other candidates in the race early on was Bruce Harrell, who seems like a decent guy, but for the fact he used to work for the incumbent telco, and seems to have been to friendly to them for my tastes during his time on the city council.

McGinn stands out for me because he is afflicted with less of Seattle's passive-aggressive "nice" and because he is actually trying to do something to spur competition in the broadband market via the Gigabit Squared deal, the Google Fiber proposal, and, I hope more (sonic.net, please?).

For now my choices are Comcast, which isn't bad, but is a little pricey an has that cable company shadyness, and CenturyLink, which can still, years into their FTTN build out, only bring me 3Mbps down and less than 1Mbps up. This is in the Greenwood neighborhood, a short commute to the growing number of tech business in Fremont, a short bus ride or drive to UW, South Lake Union and downtown. We have actual sidewalks single family homes on small lots and an increasing amount of infill development. Even worse, Centurylink has buried fiber running down my street!

I've been fantasizing about bringing either fiber or a redundant high-bandwidth wireless link to my house and then building out my own ISP, block by block. I haven't gone so far as to start running the numbers though.

Nothing like corruption and favor trading in public office. How is this worse than an African public official holding out his hand face to face for a kickback. Love how big companies pay bribes the American way in this country with Campain donations.

There is a bit of a bright spot in all of this. I live in Seattle and a CenturyLink rep knocked on my door last month. When I saw her ID, I had slotted about a half dozen denials to her sale. Then she spoke: "CenturyLink just wired your neighborhood poles with fiber, and we can offer 40/20Mbps for $35/month. In 6 months, we will have this block wired for fiber to the wall."

Sold. I called Comcast the next t day, where the incredulous rep told me that what I was telling her (fiber in the 'hood, soon to the home) was wrong and I had better watch out. Boy, she made it easy to switch.

I see CL trucks everywhere out here and always thought to myself "Hasn't anybody told these guys the news about DSL being dead?" Looks like they've been laying fiber all over the place these past few years. I've been testing my connection every hour for the last month and have never fallen below 38/18.

The general consensus in the Seattle Times is to go for Murray because he's pro-business. The general consensus in The Stranger (the other "major" paper, though it's an alternative weekly paper (and no, I don't count Seattle Weekly)) is to vote for McGinn because because Murray is an ass.

Based on what he's done in Olympia (or not done, rather), I tend to go with the Stranger's recommendation. The Comcast stuff is just more fuel for the fire.

(And yes, I'm going to avoid citing any sources, mostly through sloth, but also because unless you're from here, you don't really care, and if you are, media has been flooded with all this garbage.)

And who is the president-elect of BCAW PAC? That would be none other than Janet Turpen, the vice president of government affairs for Comcast in Seattle.

I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face when reading that sentence. I know there are virtually no strings when it comes to PACs after Citizens United, but really? I thought there'd be at least a Chinese firewall. No, we can't even count on that anymore.

There is a bit of a bright spot in all of this. I live in Seattle and a CenturyLink rep knocked on my door last month. When I saw her ID, I had slotted about a half dozen denials to her sale. Then she spoke: "CenturyLink just wired your neighborhood poles with fiber, and we can offer 40/20Mbps for $35/month. In 6 months, we will have this block wired for fiber to the wall."

Sold. I called Comcast the next t day, where the incredulous rep told me that what I was telling her (fiber in the 'hood, soon to the home) was wrong and I had better watch out. Boy, she made it easy to switch.

I see CL trucks everywhere out here and always thought to myself "Hasn't anybody told these guys the news about DSL being dead?" Looks like they've been laying fiber all over the place these past few years. I've been testing my connection every hour for the last month and have never fallen below 38/18.

See you in hell, Comcast!

That's some pretty good pricing. Good for them. Hmm....maybe I should move there. There's some good tech jobs there, right?

There is a bit of a bright spot in all of this. I live in Seattle and a CenturyLink rep knocked on my door last month. When I saw her ID, I had slotted about a half dozen denials to her sale. Then she spoke: "CenturyLink just wired your neighborhood poles with fiber, and we can offer 40/20Mbps for $35/month. In 6 months, we will have this block wired for fiber to the wall."

Sold. I called Comcast the next t day, where the incredulous rep told me that what I was telling her (fiber in the 'hood, soon to the home) was wrong and I had better watch out. Boy, she made it easy to switch.

I see CL trucks everywhere out here and always thought to myself "Hasn't anybody told these guys the news about DSL being dead?" Looks like they've been laying fiber all over the place these past few years. I've been testing my connection every hour for the last month and have never fallen below 38/18.

See you in hell, Comcast!

I'm all for competition, but I'm pretty sure CenturyLink's price jumps after 6 months to around 70/month after taxes (depends on area). So, it could be sufficient speed for what you need, but still isn't on par with what LightSpeed/Google/Whoever are offering

And who is the president-elect of BCAW PAC? That would be none other than Janet Turpen, the vice president of government affairs for Comcast in Seattle.

I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face when reading that sentence. I know there are virtually no strings when it comes to PACs after Citizens United, but really? I thought there'd be at least a Chinese firewall. No, we can't even count on that anymore.

Oh but there is a Chinese wall, it runs right through the middle of Turpen's brain.</s>

I am certainly no fan of many of Mike McGinn's policies, but Murray had a pretty small chance at the election without this revelation.

Uh, I don't know what data you're basing this on, but pretty much every poll has shown Murray with a sizable lead. And when the sitting mayor gets 29% in the primary, you know you're in deep trouble.

This certainly doesn't endear Murray to me, but McGinn has been a pretty big failure as mayor. He's certainly gotten better over time, but as he started off abysmal, he's still a way away from being any good.

Were talking at most $6000 that could easily be raised by the homeless shelter :$

I am not sure a $5000 donation from Comcast is going to get anyone elected.

I suspect that Comcast calibrates their 'government affairs' reasonably rationally: in part, the money is broken up into chunks for regulatory reasons, and in part, if you are persistent and cultivate the correct relationships, politicians are relatively cheap dates, compared to the benefits they can dole out.

This is, unfortunately, business as usual. It has, however given me a reason to vote against Murray, and I was already leaning towards McGinn.

Seattle broadband options are embarrassing for such a tech-oriented city. One of the other candidates in the race early on was Bruce Harrell, who seems like a decent guy, but for the fact he used to work for the incumbent telco, and seems to have been to friendly to them for my tastes during his time on the city council.

McGinn stands out for me because he is afflicted with less of Seattle's passive-aggressive "nice" and because he is actually trying to do something to spur competition in the broadband market via the Gigabit Squared deal, the Google Fiber proposal, and, I hope more (sonic.net, please?).

For now my choices are Comcast, which isn't bad, but is a little pricey an has that cable company shadyness, and CenturyLink, which can still, years into their FTTN build out, only bring me 3Mbps down and less than 1Mbps up. This is in the Greenwood neighborhood, a short commute to the growing number of tech business in Fremont, a short bus ride or drive to UW, South Lake Union and downtown. We have actual sidewalks single family homes on small lots and an increasing amount of infill development. Even worse, Centurylink has buried fiber running down my street!

I've been fantasizing about bringing either fiber or a redundant high-bandwidth wireless link to my house and then building out my own ISP, block by block. I haven't gone so far as to start running the numbers though.

I am certainly no fan of many of Mike McGinn's policies, but Murray had a pretty small chance at the election without this revelation.

Uh, I don't know what data you're basing this on, but pretty much every poll has shown Murray with a sizable lead. And when the sitting mayor gets 29% in the primary, you know you're in deep trouble.

This certainly doesn't endear Murray to me, but McGinn has been a pretty big failure as mayor. He's certainly gotten better over time, but as he started off abysmal, he's still a way away from being any good.

Yes just about every poll I've seen has Murray by a lot.

Also, it's nice that somewhere in Seattle there's fiber, but unless I've been living under a rock, this fiber is not available to 99% of Seattle.

I am certainly no fan of many of Mike McGinn's policies, but Murray had a pretty small chance at the election without this revelation.

Uh, I don't know what data you're basing this on, but pretty much every poll has shown Murray with a sizable lead. And when the sitting mayor gets 29% in the primary, you know you're in deep trouble.

This certainly doesn't endear Murray to me, but McGinn has been a pretty big failure as mayor. He's certainly gotten better over time, but as he started off abysmal, he's still a way away from being any good.

Yeah, McGinn is a longshot to win, which to me is a shame since current McGinn seems like a decent mayor with a set of priorities with which I agree pretty strongly. Murray, on the other hand, hasn't really articulated a platform aside from not being McGinn.

Seattle broadband options are embarrassing for such a tech-oriented city

Because any attempts by the city so far have been successfully shut down by Qwest (now Centurylink)/Comcast. Gigabit is the latest attempt to fix this, and the latest project Comcast has to take out to keep their racket strong.

I live west of Portland, OR and have Frontier fiber. It's fast, cheap, and good (similar to CenturyLink's offering farther north). I don't know how they do it, but I'm darn glad they do.

The comcrap sales rep did not get a warm reception when he knocked on my door that has a NO SOLICITORS sign clearly posted on it. Not only are they evil, overpriced, and have terrible service, they are also apparently illiterate.

The comcrap sales rep did not get a warm reception when he knocked on my door that has a NO SOLICITORS sign clearly posted on it. Not only are they evil, overpriced, and have terrible service, they are also apparently illiterate.

They're not illiterate, just aggressive assholes. They buzz apartment buildings until someone lets them in and knock on all doors.

I am certainly no fan of many of Mike McGinn's policies, but Murray had a pretty small chance at the election without this revelation.

Uh, I don't know what data you're basing this on, but pretty much every poll has shown Murray with a sizable lead. And when the sitting mayor gets 29% in the primary, you know you're in deep trouble.

This certainly doesn't endear Murray to me, but McGinn has been a pretty big failure as mayor. He's certainly gotten better over time, but as he started off abysmal, he's still a way away from being any good.

Yes just about every poll I've seen has Murray by a lot.

Also, it's nice that somewhere in Seattle there's fiber, but unless I've been living under a rock, this fiber is not available to 99% of Seattle.

The initial roll out covers 100,000 homes. That's way more than 1% of Seattle. Even if only one person lived in each home, that would be ~16%.

Granted it's a self-selection bias, but oddly when KUOW has done caller surveys about the election, they rarely get any support for Murray. I'm slightly insulated, living on the other side of the Lake, but I hope McGinn gets re-elected.

Him, or Goodspaceguy. Yes. That is his name. He runs for one office or another every year. Every chance I get, I vote for him. (I think he ran for county executive this year.)One of his political planks is colonizing space.

Wow, look at all these Ars Seattlites coming out for the fiber-turned-mayoral discussion! As far as I can tell, McGinn was the only candidate out of 9 that was aggressively pro-light rail. It's unfathomable that Seattle doesn't have better rail (or subway, whole different issue) in TYOOL2013. That being said, there are A LOT of unfathomable things about this city, and my Southern small-town standards are relatively low. If you want a whole new definition of brainless white passive-aggressive privileged imbicile, certainly move to Seattle!

What are you talking about? We have a subway running under downtown to the airport. It was built before McGinn even thought about running for mayor. Besides it's a state project. Seattle major has zip to do with it. Now we are building rail across Capitol Hill to U district, and are in final planning stages to bring it across the water to Bellevue. All this was approved and planned well before McGinn.

Don't know what you are talking about.... but other than maybe Hawaii this is The place to be if you like good neighbors. Rain and traffic suck, but you can't beat the city. Every time I travel, and I've been all over, and I look around, I thank the deity I live where I live, and can't wait to come back home.

I'm not going to debate something as subjective as the superficial congeniality of passersby and neighbors in a given locale. I will say that I knew where I stood in North FL and South GA, and I knew where those around me stood, too. And when it comes to being forthright about dicey issues, there was no mincing and hyper-PC dallying about, which is my largest complaint about the people here. Modesty does not equal kindness, and being liberal doesn't equal racial enlightenment.

To be mayor of Seattle, you have to be pretty liberal. It's a non-partisan position, but McGinn, the current mayor, was previously the head of the local chapter of the Sierra Club, while Murray is an openly gay state senator that spearheaded the effort to get gay marriages made legal, and represents one of the most liberal districts in the state.